The South Towards North: A Functionalist Approach to Setting in Richard Wright’s Black Boy

Abstract

This paper attempts to unravel characteristically the role that setting plays in capturing the society and the divergent uniqueness there always is to a time and place in any society. Literature in a broader perspective does reflect the society not however uniformed in the actions and inactions that take place there. Virginia Wolf’s often quoted lines is relevant here since it proposes that life cannot be a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged, life is a luminous halo, a semi transparent envelop surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end. The functionalist approach is one interpretive tool that sues that every device in literature plays distinct role. The error of underestimation is what this approach negates. Even though all the elements of literature are active agents for appreciating all forms of literature, setting is nevertheless of strategic importance. It is saddled with the task of unifying the theme, plot, and developing the character or it becomes a character itself. This paper is set to examine Richard Wright’s Black Boy. It argues that places and times are subject to change either for the better or otherwise. The implication of movements “Northward” in Wright’s Black Boy and its impacts on the polarized society is discoursed here. Setting is discussed therefore from the compages of functionalists approach.

Key words: setting, north, south, functionalist, discourse, rural